Residents call for action over Carpenters crisis

Newham’s flagship regeneration programme for the Carpenters

Estate in Stratford faces a new delay with a single family in an empty tower block refusing the council’s offer to buy them out of their home.

As a result a compulsory purchase order has been agreed which could delay for a year the first phase of the £1 billion masterplan to redevelop the estate.

At the same time a significant 42 per cent increase in the budget for the first phase – the refurbishment of the tower block James Riley Point and the creation of a new community centre – has seen the original budget increased by £24 million.

A Newham Voices investigation which has canvassed the opinions of local people has uncovered an overwhelming sense of apathy and despondency among residents, with some expressing concerns that the area is becoming a “ghost-estate” where the streets are increasingly unsafe and with more anti-social behaviour.

The optimism generated more than a year ago when residents were celebrating a vote in favour of the multi-million masterplan has been crushed.

For more than 20 years local residents have witnessed the decay of their estate while other parts of Stratford have been transformed, much of it thanks to the legacy of the 2012 Olympics.

That was planned to change when Populo Living, Newham’s housing company, put forward a planning application for the Estate last August. The project is one of the biggest regen- eration projects in London: 2,151 new homes will be built across the 23-acre site, with more than 50 percent available for social rent.

A residents’ ballot in December last year voted in favour of this masterplan, but many questions were still unresolved, not least negotiations with a handful of leaseholders still in occupation of the largely empty tower blocks – James Riley Point, Dennison Point and Lund Point.

One of them June Benn, aged 78, lived alone on the 11th floor of Dennison Point, a block due for demolition. She told Newham Voices In July last year she would refuse to move out. Tragically she died last week in her apartment.

A final deadline for negotiations passed in December with four leaseholders still holding out in James Riley point. Now one family remains in place, still refusing to accept the council’s offer of around £400,000 to leave their apartment.

Joe Alexandra, a resident who represents a group of freeholders, blames the crisis on mismanagement and says that every few days he personally is out cleaning up the streets of used condoms and laughing gas canisters. Like others he understands why the area has the feel of a “ghost-estate”.

Part of the problem says resident Warren Lubin is because so many of the low rise homes – more than 90 per cent he says – are now used for temporary accommodation.

Lubin, who has been on the estate for more than 20 years and is former chair of the Resident’s Steering Group, summed up the despondent feelings that have overwhelmed residents.